Gearbox Boss Bemoans Superfluous Multiplayer Modes

Speaking with Edge magazine, Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford lamented the tendency of game publishers to force multiplayer modes into games that don’t need them. Quoting: “Pitchford points to the likes of Dead Space 2 as evidence that decisions are often motivated by the desire to tick boxes on a feature list, rather than for the good of the game itself. ‘Let’s forget about what the actual promise of a game is and whether it’s suited to a narrative or competitive experience,’ he tells us. ‘Take that off the table for a minute and just think about the concept-free feature list: campaign, co-op, how many players? How many guns? How long is the campaign? ‘When you boil it down to that, you take the ability to make good decisions out of the picture. And the reason they do it is because they notice that the biggest blockbusters offer a little bit for every kind of consumer. You have people that want co-op and competitive, and players who want to immerse themselves in deep fiction. But the concept has to speak to that automatically; it can’t be forced. That’s the problem.’”